Early Republic Summary

Starting a new government isn't always easy. A decorated war hero named George Washington who became acting president. He asked both houses of congress to help him out. It wasn't long before arguments broke out. Half of the people wanted the president's title to be 'Your Excellency' and the other half just wanted 'Mr. President'. In the end, it was decided Mr. President because the president supported that title. George believed that 'Your Excellency' resembled the monarchy system in Britain.

The arguments didn't stop there. Next, there was the issue of how much power the executive branch should have and how it should work. They eventually decided that there would be three parts, the Department of State, Department of War, Department of Treasury.

Washington and the government was finally able to be set into motion. Right as they started off, they came across a major problem: they were broke. The arguments went on for a very long time until they came to the decision that they would have a whiskey tax. This problem wasn't settled that easily, though. The whiskey drinkers in the west protested and refused to pay the tax. They lowered the tax which satisfied most of the men, but not the ones in Pennsylvania. They refused to pay the tax on whiskey and became violent. Two men stepped forward to attempt to solve this problem, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson was the leader of the Republican party, and Alexander Hamilton was the leader of the Federalist party. Hamilton deployed 1300 US troops to control them. This worked, but infuriated Jefferson. He thought that it was violating peoples rights to send armed troops to use threats to calm them. After this, the two men become rivals.

There wern't issues in only the United States, across the Atlantic Sea, France was having a revolution. The French people didn't like their king and overthrew him. France then became a democracy. Jefferson and his party found this as a victory for spreading democracy across the world. Things soon became out of control in France, though. There were massive killings of women, men, and even children. People were dragged out of their homes by mobs and stabbed on the street to death. This embarrassed and disgusted Jefferson.

After running as second term, Washington decided to not run again. Since republicans and federalists were still in their divide, Washington decided to address that in his farewell speech. He warned both partys to end their fighting or else it would tear the nation apart. He reminded them of the ties that kept them together. With that, Washington was out of office.

Washington's warning did not reach Alexander Hamilton. Born in the West Indies and raised in the Caribbean, he was not about to back down. Hamilton got into politics when he moved to the United States. Washington spotted him while he was fighting the the war and made him his assistant. Alexander Hamilton then married one of the most wealthy women in all of New York. He then had it made for him. Using his father in laws connections he eventually became the leader of the Federalist party. His party mainly believes that power should not be put in the people's hands, but in the hands of the government and of the “best” people (the rich and educated people). They also believed that humans cannot make decisions on their own and they would revert to war and violence. Hamilton and the federalists wanted to expand the economy from just agriculture to a lot of other things. To do this, they would promote business and trade. This required money, which the government did not have, so Hamilton suggested a national bank. At first, congress and the republicans were opposed to this idea, but Hamilton convinced them (just congress) that it was a good idea, and the first national bank was built. Federalists strongly opposed the way that the French were behaving in their revolution.

Thomas Jefferson was almost the opposite of Hamilton. He was born a farmer with ten siblings. He got into state politics as a tobacco planter and represented Pennsylvania in congress. Thomas Jefferson and the republicans believed that humans could make good decisions on their own. Jefferson had faith in wisdom and goodness. Republicans favored democracy and felt that the government should govern as least as possible leaving most decisions the public. They also favored a strong state government as opposed to national. Republicans believed that future to out country was left in the hands of plain farmer. They also favored an economy based on agriculture. One reason why republicans were trying to stop the federalists from building a bank was because they though that banks were anti-farmer. Republicans were in support of France until they sent a representative to the US who was disrespectful or as Jefferson would describe, “hot headed”. The representative wanted the US to draw a war with Britain, which US didn’t want to do.

Since Washington had not run again, it was time for another election. Republicans wanted Jefferson to win, and Federalists wanted John Adams to win. Adams ended up winning but three votes in the Electoral College. During his presidency, three major things happened. The first was the Alien (immigration) act. This is where illegal citizens immigrated into the US and become citizens. This was not passed because immigrants usually vote republican and Hamilton didn’t want support to go to the Republicans. The second thing was the Sedition act. This allowed and encouraged rebellion against the government. At the time, this was illegal, so of course, the republicans and federalists fought. The third major even was the nations capitol moving to the District of Columbia in between the southern and western states. This was Hamilton’s idea.

After Adams’ term, there was another election. It was again between Jefferson and Adams. This caused corruption in the Federalists party because Hamilton didn’t support Adams any longer. In the end, that divide may have cost Adams the reelection, because after a tie in the Electoral College and a revote, Jefferson won, concluding this chapter in our country’s history.